Devotion: A Word of Release

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46)

I am a control freak. Most people I know are. Even if they don’t acknowledge it or see it themselves, most people are control freaks. We want to be in control of everything. We want to have a say in most things, even things that are outside our own control. We want to control how people feel about us and what their reactions will be to the things we do and say–so much so that we will go to great length or rehearsing and playing out situations in our heads long before we ever actually say or do anything.

We want to control how our lives go so we make three, five and ten year plans and hang everything on them. It is what Adam and Eve wanted so long ago in the garden–to be like God, to have control. Then the unthinkable happens. Cancer. Alzheimer. Paralysis. Death. It throws all the plans that we have made into turmoil and chaos. It is then that we realize that truly, we are not in control. Though we may have choices that we make in this life it is really God who has control. He is the one who sits outside of time. He is the one who knows the hairs on your head and each sparrow of the field. Every time we think we are in control God has a way of reminding us that, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

What we really need to strive for is release of control. A release of the feeling that we need to know everything, understand everything and have control over every aspect of our lives. It is a release to realize and understand that God is God and we are not. That God knows more and understands more than we could possibly begin to fathom. It was this understanding that sent Jesus to the cross for you, even though it seems foolishness. It was this understanding that sent Jesus to give His body and blood for you for that forgiveness of sins, though He might have said, “Isn’t there a different way?”

And so we come each day before God as beggars, laying our lives before Him, declaring, Father, you know what is best for me. Father, take my life and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to thee. “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” A word of Release.